I think a rod spun a bearing in my rebuilt 454

[TotalyHucked]

I see dead RV's with 454s for sale from time to time (and always thought that would be an decent way to get a lower-mileage 454 tailored for use in a truck instead of a car or boat), but my biggest question is what do you do with the rest of the hulk once you've salvaged out whatever is usable?

A couple guys around here I know that have done that have just slowly stripped the carcass down to a bare chassis and then sold that for scrap. Most scrap places around us don't want RVs but they'll take chassis for the steel. Kept some of the wood, paneling, plumbing, wiring, etc for other projects. Threw away what wasn't usable in small doses in their home trash can till it was gone or took it to the dump.

 

[HotRodPC]

Here's the thing though, around here and my surrounding area, I cannot find any old RV's for cheap. Or really at all. I think the wood got soft in them long ago and they have mostly been disposed of already. Travel trailers too. Compared to the newer high dollar stuff, the older stuff just doesn't really exist.

True, you're in the rust belt so the $hit prolly done rusted and the frame folded in half and it got hauled off to the dump long ago.

 

[HotRodPC]

A couple guys around here I know that have done that have just slowly stripped the carcass down to a bare chassis and then sold that for scrap. Most scrap places around us don't want RVs but they'll take chassis for the steel. Kept some of the wood, paneling, plumbing, wiring, etc for other projects. Threw away what wasn't usable in small doses in their home trash can till it was gone or took it to the dump.

Exactly !!! I'll strip the wire, that stuff is expensive when you need to buy it to build a bus, and the RV lengths are great. Thing is, you need to make your own color code circuit chart. In short, make your own wiring diagram as you build using the re pursposed wire, but yes it works and so does all those plumbing fittings for drains, water and propane. I salvage all I can, then my expenses are much cheaper and I only have to buy what exact fittings I need to make that stuff work. I'm even using the double stainless steel sink out of this one. It's not a full size household sink. Perfect for an RV bus build. I'm also using the Converter, the part that you hook you shore power too. So it has both 120V AC power and 12V DC power circuits and also a built in 2 amp charger so while you're plugged in, it tops off your coach batteries also. All that built into one small power distribution device. So many parts to rob from an RV. You should see this $1400 dual fuel RV fridge/freezer in this RV. It's NorCold brand and like brand new inside. Onyx Black front. It's awesome. So it'll run on 110 power or propane. Hell yes, I'm keeping it.

 

[HotRodPC]

I see dead RV's with 454s for sale from time to time (and always thought that would be an decent way to get a lower-mileage 454 tailored for use in a truck instead of a car or boat), but my biggest question is what do you do with the rest of the hulk once you've salvaged out whatever is usable?

You take all the fibreglass and wood to the dump after you're done and used all the wood and latches and hardware you can. Then you can sell the rear axle to a P30. It's usually going to be a 14bolt FF. Sell the 19.5 wheels etc. So much can be sold. When it's down to nothing but a chassis cut it up in about 3-4 pieces and scrap it just like scrap metal. They don't ask for a title unless you're scrapping it as a car body. I intend to use this frame though. I'm making a walking bridge over a creek with the 34 foot frame.

 

[RanchWelder]

The fact you have an option for alternative machine work is a blessing. Every shop for 50 miles either direction is booked for 2 years here.

Your idea to upgrade the rods and pistons sounds great.

Hopefully the crank is not damaged from mis-matched caps.

What you don't know, when you drop anything off, is: did the crank got bent or dropped?
Was it straight in the first place?

Bent rods in the 8100 are a real issue.
My Mark VI was looking great until I read the stories on the weak OEM link rods.
Anything you put in there to make more HP bends them like twizlers. The engineering maxxed out the usable OEM HP with minimal rods.

Wish your were available for re-negotiation services, in my neck of the woods.

Receiving your refund, really saved this thread.
Not slagging the shop is class act, as well.

Somebody's getting reamed for that one, for sure.

Good luck with your rebuild.

 

[HotRodPC]

The fact you have an option for alternative machine work is a blessing. Every shop for 50 miles either direction is booked for 2 years here.

Your idea to upgrade the rods and pistons sounds great.

Hopefully the crank is not damaged from mis-matched caps.

What you don't know, when you drop anything off, is: did the crank got bent or dropped?
Was it straight in the first place?

Bent rods in the 8100 are a real issue.
My Mark VI was looking great until I read the stories on the weak OEM link rods.
Anything you put in there to make more HP bends them like twizlers. The engineering maxxed out the usable OEM HP with minimal rods.

Wish your were available for re-negotiation services, in my neck of the woods.

Receiving your refund, really saved this thread.
Not slagging the shop is class act, as well.

Somebody's getting reamed for that one, for sure.

Good luck with your rebuild.

Thanks for putting this thread back on track. I about derailed it.

I wouldn't trust that crank either. At minimum, I think I'd want it turned and whoever does that, should be able to tell of it's bent or not. Then I could trust it. Spun bearings usually damage the journal one way or another. Maybe get by with a polishing in this case since he caught it right away and didn't continue to drive it, but I'd sure be mic'ing that journal very well to make sure it's not egg shapped in the least.

 

[RanchWelder]

You know, that is exactly what I was considering writing here. Proper polishing should work, so long as the outer rounded bearing journal is not cut, whatsoever.

If you detect a bent rod, have no idea if the crank needs to be hit in a few spots or might have been accidentally dropped during rebuild, you just don't know what you have anymore.

Your new machinist will likely ask you to:

A) buy a good remanufactured Crank,
B) have your's reworked and properly polished by somebody who does nothing else,
C) find one on sale from a major online store.
D) rebuild your unit and tes it, then run it if he's confident there's no rotation issue.

The 30 year engine transmission rebuilder here, explained how he considered GM's effort to restrict the rotating assembly with extremely tight bearing tollerances, as un-nessesary and prone to substantial break-in wear. Ferd's engines lasted very well with much larger tollerances.

We went through the GM Service manuals verifying every tollerance in the rotating assembly four times.

He assured me, he rebuilt a lot of older engines, with a HQ Hone, and reloaded stock bearings with a slight amount of wear spacing, polished the slightly spun crankshaft and the engines would run very well. Thousands of them.

Crank has to be straight. Pulled from the exact engine with spin wear and protected 100% of the time, it's out of the engine.

If there was zero chance it was dropped, or bent, you could easily use some 0000, clean it up for street use and run it. Add a little Lucas and increase the change interval as much as 1/2, if you want to protect the oil additives from being diluted with the thickener? Lot's of oil news lately.

The mis-matched caps is an issue.
GM is known for alignment problems if you swapped the caps. If they walk, all your measuring is for nothing.

There's a lot to be said for careful polishing, repalcing the bearings, verify everything with plasti-gauge and verify rotation with new rods.

If it rotates nice, it's good to go.
That's what the book says too.

If it's tight, whatsoever, it tells you to loosen each cap in sequence, until you find what's restricting roation.

Certainly this must have been overlooked, during re-assembly of your engine. All it takes is getting distracted, then closing it up too fast.

You already took it to a new machinist, is your new situation.

His protocall is now your best solution.
Especially if he hears you got a refund from somewhere else.

This is why I refrained from suggesting an easier testing process, (such as polishing yourself), so you don't get your new machinist upset with you suggesting short cuts to save money.

Whatever you do, don't argue or suggest anything to do with proedure, at this stage.

He's probably going to cover his liability and fix things that cost a bit more to do it "his" way.

***editted to clearify.

 

[HotRodPC]

You know, that is exactly what I was considering writing here. Proper polishing should work, so long as the outer rounded bearing journal is not cut, whatsoever.

If you detect a bent rod, have no idea if the crank needs to be hit in a few spots or might have been accidentally dropped during rebuild, you just don't know what you have anymore.

Your new machinist will likely ask you to:

A) buy a good remanufactured Crank,
B) have your's reworked and properly polished by somebody who does nothing else,
C) find one on sale from a major online store.
D) rebuild your unit and tes it, then run it if he's confident there's no rotation issue.

The 30 year engine transmission rebuilder here, explained how he considered GM's effort to restrict the rotating assembly with extremely tight bearing tollerances, as un-nessesary and prone to substantial break-in wear. Ferd's engines lasted very well with much larger tollerances.

We went through the GM Service manuals verifying every tollerance in the rotating assembly four times.

He assured me, he rebuilt a lot of older engines, with a HQ Hone, and reloaded stock bearings with a slight amount of wear spacing, polished the slightly spun crankshaft and the engines would run very well. Thousands of them.

Crank has to be straight. Pulled from the exact engine with spin wear and protected 100% of the time, it's out of the engine.

If there was zero chance it was dropped, or bent, you could easily use some 0000, clean it up for street use and run it. Add a little Lucas and increase the change interval as much as 1/2, if you want to protect the oil additives from being diluted with the thickener? Lot's of oil news lately.

The mis-matched caps is an issue.
GM is known for alignment problems if you swapped the caps. If they walk, all your measuring is for nothing.

There's a lot to be said for careful polishing, repalcing the bearings, verify everything with plasti-gauge and verify rotation with new rods.

If it rotates nice, it's good to go.
That's what the book says too.

If it's tight, whatsoever, it tells you to loosen each cap in sequence, until you find what's restricting roation.

Certainly this must have been overlooked, during re-assembly of your engine. All it takes is getting distracted, then closing it up too fast.

You already took it to a new machinist, is your new situation.

His protocall is now your best solution.
Especially if he hears you got a refund from somewhere else.

This is why I refrained from suggesting an easier testing process, (such as polishing yourself), so you don't get your new machinist upset with you suggesting short cuts to save money.

Whatever you do, don't argue or suggest anything to do with proedure, at this stage.

He's probably going to cover his liability and fix things that cost a bit more to do it "his" way.

***editted to clearify.

Yep, Crank grinding machines are so expensive, most machine shops send them out to be done and as you mentioned, that's all they do is cranks because that's all they have to do if they have the machine and mics to properly mic journals.
If you want any build to tolerate abuse OR last forever, crank and rod work are the key to an engine holding together and lasting a good long time.

 

[RanchWelder]

Cannot wait to hear your new engine is running.

My first fire this afternoon, after rebuilding the entire harness, engine, transmission (in-house, by myself), was a 99% success today.
(One lil' drip from a lower head bolt not getting the A/P thread sealant). That's still a 1%-er.

What really made it worth while, was my buddy, a 1964 Vietnam Vet, turned it over for the third time, (after 2 turns, no fire), while I was away searching for the timing light. Lite right up, 3rd bump.

There's no better sound from across the compound of a really cool old man, lighting up everything, the first time, zero defect.
He was amazed, nothing was screwed up. Made him proud, after all the curve of us getting to know each other and it all worked as planned. Look on his face was worth every moment.

Lot's of prayers tonight for the grace the Lord has offered, during your fist-fight with this truck.

Hope you're new engine rewards you the same HotRodPC.

 

[HotRodPC]

Cannot wait to hear your new engine is running.

My first fire this afternoon, after rebuilding the entire harness, engine, transmission (in-house, by myself), was a 99% success today.
(One lil' drip from a lower head bolt not getting the A/P thread sealant). That's still a 1%-er.

What really made it worth while, was my buddy, a 1964 Vietnam Vet, turned it over for the third time, (after 2 turns, no fire), while I was away searching for the timing light. Lite right up, 3rd bump.

There's no better sound from across the compound of a really cool old man, lighting up everything, the first time, zero defect.
He was amazed, nothing was screwed up. Made him proud, after all the curve of us getting to know each other and it all worked as planned. Look on his face was worth every moment.

Lot's of prayers tonight for the grace the Lord has offered, during your fist-fight with this truck.

Hope you're new engine rewards you the same HotRodPC.

I hope so too, but I'm not to worried. It's not seized so I expect it to fire right up. I mean what all can be wrong with a 43,000 mile 454? Or is it 48,000? Anyway, it's in the 40's. Maybe some smoke from stuck rings from sitting at first, but once it warms up and gets a few miles on it, with a fresh oil change and some Marvels and/or Sea Foam, I expect the rings will free up and do their job.

 

[txaggie]

Going with a blueprint 496. Hopefully not too much motor for the burb lol

 

[HotRodPC]

Going with a blueprint 496. Hopefully not too much motor for the burb lol

You're going to love that torque monster stroker motor. Ohh yes you are. IIRC, that's also a square displacement engine. Most Prolly aren't aware what that means. That means the bore and the stroke are the same dimension. One of the reason Olds 350 is considered the best 350 of all GM 350's. Buick, Pontiac, Chevy and Olds, all but Cad had a 350 and the Rocket 350 was the winner. It's oversquared dimensioned engine with the bore being bigger than the stroke. Now the 496, isn't truely square since when bored, it's now bigger than the OE 4.250 bore so it too is actually oversquared.

 

[Ricko1966]

Square=, bore and stroke the same, over square= bore bigger than stroke, under square =bore smaller than stroke. SBC 350 and Olds 350 close enough on bore and stroke,where the Olds has the advantage is the long rods IMHO. We used Olds rods in SBC before all the cool hot rod stuff got cheap. Olds rods were cheap, aftermarket long rods were big money.

 

[bucket]

Going with a blueprint 496. Hopefully not too much motor for the burb lol

There's no such thing as too much motor!

 

[HotRodPC]

Square=, bore and stroke the same, over square= bore bigger than stroke, under square =bore smaller than stroke. SBC 350 and Olds 350 close enough on bore and stroke,where the Olds has the advantage is the long rods IMHO. We used to Olds rods in SBC before all the cool hot rod stuff got cheap. Olds rods were cheap aftermarket long rods were big money.

Right, the breakover in the stroke is better with longer rods and easier to turn higher rpm too. Pretty much aftermarket SB 400 rods are better than the OE rods. Same for 383 Stroker 350. I'm obviously rusty on my #'s. Been many years and I'm a lot older now. I used to be a walking GM encylopedia on bores and strokes, especially Chevy, Pontiac and Oilds. A bit on the Cad 472 and 500 too, but not so much on the Buicks, but for comparison purposes, I did know a bit of Buick too.

I used to play with small journal SBC's quite a bit too for little ricky race around town engines. Then small journals and being all of the small journal engines being forged cranks, you could throw all the rpm you wanted at them and they'd hold up to the abuse. Even with some small valve Power Pak heads, ported them out and a bit of polishing, they made a ton of torque for such small engines, mainly the 283s. But you could make a small journal 327 run very well for back in those days and have fun and even win a few races in a lightened body. I helped a buddy build a Chevy Vega. He had it subframed and tubbed for a Ford 9 inch and 4.88 gears and one of my Turbo 350's and small journal 327 with fuelie aka double hump heads that another buddy worked over on his flow bench. He'd launch that thing and carry the wheelie just before shifting to 2nd. 11.80's not to shabby for a little 327 on all motor. A little sqeeze with a throttle plate and 2 solenoids, could get it into the very high 10's and 11 flat. Didn't want to squeeze it to hard with the higher 10.5 and 11:00 to 1 compression. A bit to high for nitrous and when he did, he ran aviation fuel with some 30 weight added or Trick racing fuel. Fun times back then.